Thursday, September 27, 2007

Our Own Little Ant Hill

When I feel neurotic, or sad, or scared, or insert-yucky-emotion-here I get a good kick in the ass from my grandfather.

What does he say?

It only takes one sentence for him to slap me back into the reality that everything is not a big deal, and it is pretty damn easy to be happy most of the time.

“Rachel, we are all ants and all we can really see is the top of the aunt hill.”

Sometimes I wonder what he means, and why he always seems to talk in metaphor. It’s like having this Yoda in my ear that can only be understood half the time and the other half I am left standing there muttering “huh?”

Sometimes I take this to mean that we can really only see what is slightly in front of us instead of the big picture. Sometimes I take this to mean that all people being equal parts of the puzzle, none of us are as important as we think we are, so self absorption is futile.

Most of the times I take that statement as if we really know so little, and can see so little, then from a universal perspective, we are ignorant.

From that I see that ignorance is truly bliss and although sometimes I don’t understand my grandfather I absorb the information anyway and if we know nothing, we can't worry about anything...joy then is the only way to go.

5 comments:

twobuyfour said...

It sounds as if your grandfather is a wise man. I take that particular little gem to mean that none of us really know what's going on. We all specialize in our own little corner of the world, but there is a Big Picture most of us miss entirely.

Glad to hear from you after so long. Peruse my new site and tell me what you think.
http://twobuyfour.wordpress.com/

Are you still in SoCal? Still happy?

-J said...

Hi, Rachel. I hope you've been doing well. :-)

minijonb said...

any affirmation is a good affirmation. you're lucky to have your grandfather's love and help.

Sue said...

I agree. Sometimes all we can see is what is right there for us to see.

carmilevy said...

You need to watch the Pixar masterpiece, A Bug's Life, to put your grandpa's advice into its proper perspective. We can always seem more if we choose to make the effort.

I like your concept of joy, however. Your optimism has always been infectious, and I'm glad I popped in to see how you're doing.

It's been a bit since you last posted. Everything OK? Ping my blog when you're back online, k?